On Understanding Grammar

In his foreword to the original edition of this classic of functionalism, typology and diachrony, Dwight Bolinger wrote: "I foresee it as one of the truly prizes statements of our current knowledge…a book about understanding done with deep understanding – of language and its place in Nature and in the nature of humankind… The book is rich in insights, even for those who have been with linguistics for a long time. And beginners could be thankful for having it as a starting point, from which so many past mistakes have been shed". Thoroughly revised, corrected and updated, On Understanding Grammar remains, as its author intended it in 1979, a book about trying to make sense of human language and of doing…